educational stuff

Introduction A student once shared; “Parents raise us but teachers raise our mind.” This seemingly simple statement has since profoundly impacted the way I perceive my role as an educator. Being in a position to influence students’ thinking, behavior and, most of all, their desire to be future ready, is a noble cause that has become my personal career mission. The world today is hungry for good leaders, and organizations thrive on leadership excellence to stay competitive and successful. Therefore the power to leave positive footprints in one’s life continues to fuel my passion for teaching and life-long learning. I … Continue reading Molding Future Leaders

As the old adage goes ‘two heads are better than one’, the benefits of working together as a group are apparent. Teamwork is vital in any workplace nowadays and so it should be promoted in your classrooms. There is a lot of journal articles written to help teachers differentiate between cooperative learning and collaborative learning. Deciding which approach to use depends on your intent and the desired learning outcomes for your students. Purpose First, the two terms ‘collaborative learning’ and ‘cooperative learning’ are often used interchangeably because the purpose of both approaches is the same which is to allow students … Continue reading The Difference in Cooperative Learning & Collaborative Learning

Team-based learning (TBL) is an active learning, group-based, peer teaching strategy that fosters positive team dynamics through intra-team communication. It involves a specific sequence of activities and feedback designed to quickly transform groups of students into high-performance learning teams in which members of each team know and need each other, and hold each other accountable for preparation and contribution (Sweet & Michaelsen, 2012). Learners are expected to prepare before coming for class and collaborate with their team members to solve authentic problems. Principles The four key principles of TBL (Walker, Zheng, Mendoza, & Lee, 2017) are: Team formation and looking … Continue reading Team-based Learning (TBL) using Learning Catalytics at SIMGE

In the world of design including learning design, the term ‘affordance’ has taken on a larger-than-life meaning. So, let me bring you back to its origin. According to Gibson (1979), affordances refer to the actionable properties between the world and its actors which include you and me. A person’s perception of the environment leads to some course of action. Clues in the environment or affordances point out possibilities for action by a person directly with no sensory processing. Examples include: Buttons for pushing Knobs for turning Affordances and technology However, Norman (1998) offered a modified view of affordance focusing on … Continue reading What is an affordance and how it can help us understand the use of ICT in education?

Mark enters the classroom for another day of lectures looking forward to learning something new. If the lectures are boring, he can always choose to connect with his friends in class or get on social media and update himself. Mark and his classmates are part of Gen-Y, a generation of students that have been described as impatient, incurious, unmotivated and in possession of a belief that they are entitled to large rewards for small amount of effort. Gen-Y has grown up in an environment that is significantly different from what prior generations have experienced. The impact is that their view … Continue reading From Happy Learning to Effective Learning – Classroom Management Techniques for the 21st Century

The four global forces – demographics, resource demand, globalisation and climate change, entwined with the fifth force, technology, will shape the future (Smith, 2010). Hedely Beare’s (2001) ‘I am the future’s child’ questions the design of pedagogy, curriculum and assessment in schools to equip children for the future world. The world is changing, a service economy driven by information, knowledge, and innovation has displaced the industrial economy, thereby reshaping business and workplaces (Kay, 2010), and this preludes the need for an education which prepares students for the economic, workforce and citizenship opportunities and demands of the 21st Century. Sir Ken Robinson (2006) contests the role of schooling, academic inflation, antiquated belief … Continue reading Collaboration – An Essential 21st Century Skills

Introduction Individual differences in learning behaviour have been widely researched over the last four decades or so, yet there is still much that is not known about how individuals manage learning within and across different contexts. The concept of individuals preferring a particular learning style focuses on the person-bound differences in the way individuals go about learning (e.g., Pask, 1988; Sternberg, 1988). Researchers in this branch generally argue that the differences are related to personality traits and are thus rather stable. Proponents of the style construct often assume that a relatively direct relationship exists between learning style, teaching style and … Continue reading Key Principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL): Opening Doors for All Learners